What will happen after the copyright of Mein Kampf expires?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Currently Mein Kampf's copyright is held by the state of Bavaria, but 2015 is the last year it'll be valid, it'll expire at the end of the year as it's now 70 years since the death of the author. Currently it can not be published in Germany or basically the whole EU due to the copyright holder prohibiting it, but that'll be moot when it enters public domain.

I can see Germany specifically banning it under statute, but what would other countries do? Personally I'd rather just see it go public domain and be freely distributed, since it'll be telling seeing who picks it up and goes crazy over it (I can see Golden Dawn distributing it, and no doubt in Germany parties like the NPD would like to as well.)

[politicus]

Mein Kampf is incredible poorly written and boring. It will never be a bestseller, even among the far right.

[Insula Dei]

Mein Kampf is incredible poorly written and boring. It will never be a bestseller, even among the far right.

Have you ever tried to read Ayn Rand?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Mein Kampf is incredible poorly written and boring. It will never be a bestseller, even among the far right.

If Dan Brown can become a bestselling author, I see no reason why Adolf Hitler can't join him.

[politicus]

Mein Kampf is incredible poorly written and boring. It will never be a bestseller, even among the far right.

Have you ever tried to read Ayn Rand?

No, Mein Kampf is a highly influential work so I forced myself through it. I could never mobilize the same motivation to get through any of Rand's drivel.

Mein Kampf is incredible poorly written and boring. It will never be a bestseller, even among the far right.

If Dan Brown can become a bestselling author, I see no reason why Adolf Hitler can't join him.

Enjoy your trolling.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Mein Kampf is incredible poorly written and boring. It will never be a bestseller, even among the far right.

Have you ever tried to read Ayn Rand?

Ayn Rands books actually sell among the far right, so I don't quite see the comparison.

[Insula Dei]

Mein Kampf is incredible poorly written and boring. It will never be a bestseller, even among the far right.

Have you ever tried to read Ayn Rand?

Ayn Rands books actually sell among the far right, so I don't quite see the comparison.

The point is that neonazis don't strike me as likely to have a sounder literary taste than American libertarians.

[Famous Mortimer]

Mein Kampf is already freely available in America, where being able to buy it at any mall book store has had no negative impact.

Mostly people who read it are reading it as a curiosity or as a messed up piece of alternative history.

The few people who read it as Gospel are a lost cause anyway, not like making it illegal would turn them into good citizens.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The point is that neonazis don't strike me as likely to have a sounder literary taste than American libertarians.

Neonazis can read??!

[politicus]

Mein Kampf is incredible poorly written and boring. It will never be a bestseller, even among the far right.

Have you ever tried to read Ayn Rand?

Ayn Rands books actually sell among the far right, so I don't quite see the comparison.

The point is that neonazis don't strike me as likely to have a sounder literary taste than American libertarians.

It is not about taste but complexity. There is after all a storyline and some characters in Ayn Rands books - Mein Kampf is a very dry and heavy text. I imagine a neo-Nazi might read some excerpts, but it is not the sort of thing a lot of people would ever actually read.

[ingemann]

Mein Kampf is incredible poorly written and boring. It will never be a bestseller, even among the far right.

Have you ever tried to read Ayn Rand?

Ayn Rands books actually sell among the far right, so I don't quite see the comparison.

Actually it doesn't sell as well as some people says.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/business/15atlas.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Now 150 000 books sold are not bad and much more than 15 000 Mein Kampf books sold annual in USA, but it's much below how many books people claims are being sold, and it's not really that impressive when over 2/3 of Atlas Shrugged "sold" annual is given away for free.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Mein Kampf is incredible poorly written and boring. It will never be a bestseller, even among the far right.

Have you ever tried to read Ayn Rand?

Ayn Rands books actually sell among the far right, so I don't quite see the comparison.

Actually it doesn't sell as well as some people says.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/business/15atlas.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Now 150 000 books sold are not bad and much more than 15 000 Mein Kampf books sold annual in USA, but it's much below how many books people claims are being sold, and it's not really that impressive when over 2/3 of Atlas Shrugged "sold" annual is given away for free.

Fair points. My school (a Christian school ironically) has benefited from the ARI's program. We can all agree that both books probably sold more than Hillary's book .

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Anyone who strongly wants to peruse Mein Kampf today can, so I don't see where it would be significant.  Of course, the copyright should have ended in 1995 or earlier, as life+50 is really the maximum sane copyright length. I suppose the book could be used as an excuse to lengthen copyright terms.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Mein Kampf is incredible poorly written and boring. It will never be a bestseller, even among the far right.

If Dan Brown can become a bestselling author, I see no reason why Adolf Hitler can't join him.

Enjoy your trolling.

Well think about it:

The Da Vinci Code is:

* Wildly inaccurate, yet with delusions of meaning
* Poorly written
* Insanely conspiratorial

Remind you of a certain other book?

Seriously though, I imagine it will get a brief period of morbid interest, (like a lot of people were very interested in, say, Brievik's manifesto or Manson's ramblings) but not a very sustained one. And I imagine that being in the public domain will entail its use in endless pieces of postmodern edgy art.

[Cory]

Mein Kampf is incredible poorly written and boring. It will never be a bestseller, even among the far right.

This. Hitler's Second Book, however, is actually a great read as it deals more with his foreign policy ideas.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

The problem is, Mein Kampf is already easily accessible (you can download it from the internet in a matter of minutes), so I don't think copyright expiration would matter much.

Mein Kampf is incredible poorly written and boring. It will never be a bestseller, even among the far right.

Have you ever tried to read Ayn Rand?

No, Mein Kampf is a highly influential work so I forced myself through it. I could never mobilize the same motivation to get through any of Rand's drivel.

I salute you. I've tried to go through Mein Kampf twice, but I just couldn't go far. Regardless of it's disgusting political context, it's really awful read.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Mein Kamp might be worse written than Twilight.

[NewYorkExpress]

Some Countries will ban it, and some already have, but the bigger risk is someone like Marine Le Pen or Nigel Farage rewriting it and replacing Jews with Muslims.

Anyone rewriting it would probably remove the Lebensraum portion of the book, as it's much more dated the rest.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Anyone rewriting it would probably remove the Lebensraum portion of the book, as it's much more dated the rest.

Not really.  Just look at the West Bank for a modern day example of Lebensraum in action.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Some Countries will ban it, and some already have, but the bigger risk is someone like Marine Le Pen or Nigel Farage rewriting it and replacing Jews with Muslims.

Anyone rewriting it would probably remove the Lebensraum portion of the book, as it's much more dated the rest.

Brilliant commentary.

[NewYorkExpress]

Anyone rewriting it would probably remove the Lebensraum portion of the book, as it's much more dated the rest.

Not really.  Just look at the West Bank for a modern day example of Lebensraum in action.

I said more dated, not that it didn't apply at all.

[Simfan34]

Mein Kamp might be worse written than Twilight.

And this was worth saying because...?

[Cranberry]

I doubt Germany and Austria would have to ban it explicitly after this year, I would say possession and sale of the book would fall under the prohibition paragraph/law. I guess quite a few other European nations would simply just ban it?

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

I doubt Germany and Austria would have to ban it explicitly after this year, I would say possession and sale of the book would fall under the prohibition paragraph/law. I guess quite a few other European nations would simply just ban it?

I can't speak for other countries, but Polish law specifically prohibits propagating fascist or nazis ideas, which would make any legal publication impossible without specifically banning the book.

[The Mikado]

Anyone rewriting it would probably remove the Lebensraum portion of the book, as it's much more dated the rest.

Rewrite it? Like 80% is an autobiographical rant of a soldier about how he infiltrated an obscure political party as a government agent and then went rogue and took over said party. The political content is far and away in the back seat to a rambling autobiographical memoir of the least interesting parts of Adolf Hitler's life.